Acid treatment

A bottle of acid

With the weather getting shiveringly cold, it's time for the acid treatment. This year I thought I'd buy the acid in bulk, so I'd have enough to last a few years. So, thank ebay, I had a largish bottle of oxalic acid, which aroused quite a bit of interest from the pupils. However, I have since discovered that the acid does not keep, as the sugar, with which it is diluted, somehow ferments (or similar - can't quite remember what), so will not be good for more than a year or so. Great! So much for wanting to do it all myself.

Be that as it may, I had three keen volunteers, all from younger years so the beesuits trailed on the ground somewhat. Not sure the mud will go out (stains generally never go out in the wash), but it's time to wash the suits anyway.
First excitement of the day was that the hive stand has been completed. So Mr. V and I decided to heave the hive onto the new stand after the acid treatment. No point in getting the bees riled up because their house is moving to then open them up!

The new, sturdy stand - thanks to Chris the carpenter

Opening the hive somewhat more noisily than I wanted to (yes, the bees had stuck everything down properly with propolis), we saw numerous bees inside. They had built some brace comb over the top and seemed to be occupying five seams, which is quite a lot. The store situation looked good. Quite a few bees buzzed around us, but there was no hint of aggression in their buzz, more curiosity. They landed on the pupils, Mr. V, me and the syringe. None stung.

Bees watching the acid drip in

As quickly and thoroughly as possible I dripped the acid into the seams. Although the advice says to move the frames apart a little before doing this, this would have been impossible, as all frames are firmly stuck down. Had I tried, I'm sure the dummy board would have come apart; it has made several attempts to do this in the past and then we would have been nowhere.
After finishing with the acid, we quickly closed up the hive and then lifted it onto the new stand.

The hive on its new stand

Checking the mouse guard, with pupils looking on